When the smoke clears off the streets of Manhattan, will it rise in Queens?

More street vendors may soon surface in Queens, drawing crowds of sale-seekers to borough sidewalks. Tribune Photos By Liz Goff.

In all likelihood it will, said Queens officials, as street vendors make their way across the river to hawk their goods at locations like Continental Avenue in Forest Hills, downtown Flushing and Astoria.

The prospect of vendors relocating to Queens has community officials and business owners in an uproar – fearful that the city may help them make the move and even map out sites where they can relocate.

"There’s no doubt about it," said City Councilmember Karen Koslowitz, who said she noticed a marked increase in peddlers in her Forest Hills district after the city chased them off streets around Madison Square Garden back in 1995.

"We have had a proliferation of vendors in Forest Hills since they were moved out of Manhattan three years ago," Koslowitz said. "And this current move involves 144 city blocks that are swarming with vendors.

"These people are not going out of business, so where does the city think they’ll go?" Koslowitz declared.

The Queens lawmaker questioned the status of a 1995 proposal penned by the Street Vendor Review Panel that would permit vendors to hawk their goods on some of the busiest commercial strips in Queens.

Those sites include Continental Avenue, Ascan Avenue and "spots" along Austin Street in Forest Hills; Broadway and Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria and Junction Boulevard; from 57th Avenue to the Long Island Expressway and 34th Avenue to Roosevelt Avenue, in Corona.

The 1995 proposal, which was never scrapped by the city, was described as a "compromise" to vendors who were scooted off streets on 42nd Street from First to Eighth Avenues, on Fifth Avenue from Central Park to Rockefeller Center and on 33rd Street between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.

The city took Applications To Relocate from the vendors, judging them based on "a series of factors," said Rudy Washington, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development.

Hungry Queensites gather to munch some lunch from a local food vendor - who may soon be faced with increased competition from his peers.

"The decisions on where to relocate the vendors is based upon the merits," said a spokesperson for Washington. Those merits include how long the vendor has been in business and their record of paying taxes to both the city and state, authorities said.

The vendors sued the city back in 1995 – a move that many have been forced to relocate since then now describe as a waste of time.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani remains steadfast in his determination to rid Manhattan’s streets of vendors. The mayor has said repeatedly that vendors clog the streets in midtown and take customers away from legitimate, tax-paying businesses in the city.

Unfair Competition

Officials of the city’s Small Business Congress (SBC) have argued for years that the skyrocketing number of small businesses who have been forced to shut their doors in Queens were "directly influenced" to do so because of the vendor problem.

"Street vendors make up the fastest growing industry in the city," SBC officials said. "It’s the city’s worst kept secret, and not something to take pride in."

After public outcry back in the 1970s, the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs established guidelines for licensed vendors, designating "Restricted Zones" along commercial strips throughout the five boroughs.

Only licensed vendors offering specific items for sale may set up shop within the zones. Licensed vendors who operate outside the zone are free to sell just about anything – from T-shirts to tricycles, presenting a genuine threat, either way, to shopkeepers who pay mounting rent and taxes. The vendors have none of the overhead of stores, such as rent, insurance, utilities, and some 17 direct and indirect taxes paid by merchants and small businesses.

The proposal to relocate calls for the removal of restrictions on some commercial strips in Queens – a direct reversal of the victory sought and won by business and community leaders some 25 years ago.

"Don’t businesses in Queens pay taxes just like these in midtown Manhattan?," SBC officials said.

Grim Facts

Failure on the part of vendors to pay taxes ignites furor among business owners. State finance officials told the Tribune that both New York City and New York State continue to lose an "unaccountable" amount of tax dollars through a system that fails to monitor the sales tax practices of street vendors licensed by the city’s Health Department and Department of Consumer Affairs.

"Simply stated, not enough people who hold vendor licenses and are selling, are recording or reporting their sales, state tax officials said.

"There is no way, currently, to tell how much is collected by vendors in the form of tax dollars, or even if they collect tax at all."

In addition, the Department of Consumer Affairs – as a matter of routine practice – renews licenses of vendors who fail to provide accurate information regarding the taxes they have collected.

"It’s a way for them to avoid coughing up tax dollars to the city’s coffers," SBC officials said.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, an employee of the state Department of Taxation and Finance told the Tribune that vendors regularly file unsubstantiated information when reporting their earnings.

"They claim illness, or family circumstances prohibited them from working, let’s say seven months out of the year," the source said.

"The department regularly issues tax clearance certificates based on the information submitted. The vendors then file the clearance certificates with Consumer Affairs as part of their license renewal procedure.

"Their licenses are renewed without question – although employees of both agencies know that the vendors have not submitted true earnings certificates," they said.

An employee at the state tax office – who refused to give his name – told the Tribune that "people should get serious" about the limitations faced by employees of the agency. "Don’t start making waves," the man said. "We simply don’t have enough people on staff here to even try to verify these earnings records."

Aside from other problems generated by legal vendors, it has been estimated that at least an additional 15,000 unlicensed vendors hawk food and merchandise throughout the five boroughs, further clogging city streets and costing more than $800 million annually in unpaid taxes.

Enforcement

Police officials have established tough enforcement guidelines to control the actions of vendors – both legal and illegal.

A multi-agency crackdown directly impacts on vendors who sell their merchandise legally, and shuts down those who hawk their goods without a license.

The police and health departments, and the Department of Consumer Affairs have issued a combined total of over 200,000 summonses to vendors since 1990.

Some of the cases are resolved in court, when a vendor appears and pays a fine. The vendor may then reclaim any merchandise (except perishables) that are confiscated by police. Food products and perishable items are donated to shelters and food kitchens by officials at local precincts.

Once the vendor has reclaimed his merchandise, it’s back to the streets – and in most cases, back to the same practices that resulted in the summonses.

"Business people in Queens pay taxes," said Gus Kobleck, executive director of the Central Astoria Local Development Corporation. "They pay high overhead to run legitimate businesses.

"It is the business owner who is cited by sanitation officers for paper and other debris left by vendors when they pack up and go home for the day," he said.

"Our local businesses employ our local residents – from teenagers to seniors seeking to supplement their income," he added. "It’s just not fair to place vendors outside their stores."

City Council Member Anthony Weiner, who represents parts of Brooklyn (where the plan seeks also to relocate the vendors), blasted the Street Vendor Panel, and called the plan to move vendors "arbitrary."

Weiner said he plans to introduce legislation, calling for the breakup of the four-member Vendor Panel, which currently consists of three mayoral appointees. Giuliani has not yet acted on naming a fourth member.

Local merchants groups from throughout Queens fumed at the prospect of more vendors in the borough. Some vendors voiced their opposition to the plan as well, charging that the city routinely ignores the problem of illegal, unlicensed street hawkers.

Another of the vendors’ gripes charge is that local development corporations (LDC) will not give legal vendors a fair break because they view them as competition to local businesses – not just because they allegedly clog and litter the streets.

The vendors said the LDC’s clutter local streets themselves, by running street festivals and allowing vending machines on bustling corners in Queens. The LDCs generate funding from local businesses through approved "tax" payments that foot the bill for security and other amenities for the retailers.

"What about all these new trees the LDCs are planting on commercial strips?" said a disgruntled vendor who came to Queens after the 1995 exorcism of peddlers from Manhattan. "They clog the streets and take away sidewalk space. Are trees more important than people who work to support families?"

Rudy Washington announced this week that the city would not just move food vendors out of Manhattan. The move will include booksellers, newspaper vendors (paid publications) and artists who hawk items that receive First Amendment protection and who are not required to have a license.

"If we say that a street is too cluttered to allow vending, we must include all vendors," Washington said. "If we ban food vendors from a street, we must ban any illegal vendor."

That move alone will force over 100 illegal book vendors out of Manhattan – a threatening specter to officials and business owners in Queens.

"The vendors think they can operate without any restrictions or guidelines," Kobleck said. "They think it’s okay to set up shop anywhere, anytime, and do whatever they want.

"Who does the city care about?," he asked. "People who pay taxes, or people who break the law?"